Volunteers Contribute to Hurricane Michael Crowdsourcing Effort

Hurricane Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida, as a Category 4 hurricane on October 10, 2018, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph and life-threatening storm surges. The hurricane tore through the Florida Panhandle into Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, leaving a swath of severe wind damage in its wake. Lack of power and cellular service, combined with roads damaged by storm surge or blocked by fallen trees and debris, impeded the flow of information to first responders and emergency managers.

Volunteers combed social media and news outlets for photos of on-the-ground conditions, using details within the images or clues embedded in accompanying text to determine each photo’s location. Volunteers also sifted through auto-gathered tweets posted to an automated Slack channel powered by Zapier. The Zapier feed, configured by Rob Neppell of Crowd Emergency Disaster Response (CEDR) Digital Corps, gathered tweets based on geographic place names and relevant keywords.

The application and the resulting dataset were used by the FEMA National Response Coordination Center, Florida State Emergency Operations Center, and FEMA and state search and rescue teams to increase situational awareness and inform decision making.